Gus Honeybun and Auntie Stella

SP

Steve in Pudsey 1 March 2021 1:43pm

I read an anecdote recently - possibly Charlotte Green's autobiography? - of several old school announcers (not including Ms Green or whomever I am misquoting) in the bar. One of whom was supposed to be on duty. Coins were tossed or similar to decide who would go over to BH and read the next news bulletin.

MA

Markymark 1 March 2021 3:06pm

Coronavision posted:

commseng posted:

Coronavision posted:

The TTTV announcers were known to spend some of their time in the Egypt Cottage with a pager in their pocket...

It may be difficult to imagine this now, but there was a huge culture of drinking in the broadcasting industry going back a few years.
To single out the announcers is a little unfair, although as they were the familiar faces and voices of the stations, it is possibly not surprising.
Before mobile phones there would be the phone numbers of pubs where staff were likely to be on file - and I have been in pubs when the person behind the bar has taken a call and asked if there were any BBC engineers in there......

I really don't think that the broadcast industry was alone in that - associated trades - such as journalists and musicians didn't seem to be shy of a pint or two.
There were some extreme cases, going back to announcers, there were two who couldn't be rota'd on shift together as they would encourage each other to have yet another "bollocking pint".......

Yeah there are some infamous stories of drinking habits in broadcasting.

Not just in the UK either of course. The US version of Blankety Blank was notorious for the atmosphere on post-Wednesday episodes (they'd be produced a week in a day, the first three before lunch, the Thursday/Friday and prime-time syndicated version afterwards). The whole cast and crew would have a liquid lunch inbetween, and often would be absolutely blotto in the latter episodes -- even the camerawork was distinctly "wobbly" in some of them. Other shows will of course have been the same, but bringing a load of celebs together for such a production over a weekend made it more obvious here.

I turned up at The London Studios the morning after one of the The British Comedy Awards, the bar area looked like it had been turned upside down.

BL

bluecortina 1 March 2021 5:42pm

Markymark posted:

Coronavision posted:

commseng posted:

It may be difficult to imagine this now, but there was a huge culture of drinking in the broadcasting industry going back a few years.
To single out the announcers is a little unfair, although as they were the familiar faces and voices of the stations, it is possibly not surprising.
Before mobile phones there would be the phone numbers of pubs where staff were likely to be on file - and I have been in pubs when the person behind the bar has taken a call and asked if there were any BBC engineers in there......

I really don't think that the broadcast industry was alone in that - associated trades - such as journalists and musicians didn't seem to be shy of a pint or two.
There were some extreme cases, going back to announcers, there were two who couldn't be rota'd on shift together as they would encourage each other to have yet another "bollocking pint".......

Yeah there are some infamous stories of drinking habits in broadcasting.

Not just in the UK either of course. The US version of Blankety Blank was notorious for the atmosphere on post-Wednesday episodes (they'd be produced a week in a day, the first three before lunch, the Thursday/Friday and prime-time syndicated version afterwards). The whole cast and crew would have a liquid lunch inbetween, and often would be absolutely blotto in the latter episodes -- even the camerawork was distinctly "wobbly" in some of them. Other shows will of course have been the same, but bringing a load of celebs together for such a production over a weekend made it more obvious here.

I turned up at The London Studios the morning after one of the The British Comedy Awards, the bar area looked like it had been turned upside down.

The scene dock was also an ‘entertainment’ area. If you were on a GMTV shift after the Comedy Awards you could fill the boot of your car up with crates of leftovers.

SW

Steve Williams 1 March 2021 8:15pm

Steve in Pudsey posted:

I read an anecdote recently - possibly Charlotte Green's autobiography? - of several old school announcers (not including Ms Green or whomever I am misquoting) in the bar. One of whom was supposed to be on duty. Coins were tossed or similar to decide who would go over to BH and read the next news bulletin.

In Ken Bruce's autobiography he talks about being an announcer on Radio 4 Scotland, where the hardest link of the day to do was "And now Woman's Hour with Sue MacGregor" because that was a name that was easy to sumble over straight after, cough, "lunch".

In Pip Schofield's book he mentions one Top of the Pops producer who famously indulged in the drinking culture a bit too much and on at least one occasion fell asleep during the recording and the rest of the gallery just carried on without him. I think I know who that is as well (B**** W*********).

(February 2021)